Ephesians - Holy Living - Part 1 - Ephesians 4:25-27

This is why he says, "Now you put off that old man, which grows corrupt. And put on the new man, which is being created unto true holiness. Make your choice: the old corruption or the new creation?"

"Therefore, putting away lying, each one speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another." Ephesians 4:25. Paul now begins to apply personally the doctrines that he's been teaching in the earlier part of this letter. The key word here is "therefore." Therefore, because of what God has done for you, therefore putting away lying. Now in this series of admonitions, Paul deals with a number of sins. He talks about lying in Ephesians 4:25, anger in Ephesians 4:26-27, stealing in Ephesians 4:28, corrupt speech in Ephesians 4:29, bitterness and wrath in Ephesians 4:31, and an unforgiving spirit in Ephesians 4:32. These are sins that are in good standing, apparently, because we find them among Christians today. Remember, he's not writing to the unsaved crowd in Ephesus; he's writing to believers. And so Paul deals definitely and specifically with these sins. 

Now, please notice the approach that Paul takes. First, there's an admonition. "Therefore, putting away lying"—that's the negative. "Each one speak truth with his neighbor"—that's the positive. First, the admonition, the negative: putting away lying. The positive: speak the truth. What is a lie? A lie is a statement or an action contrary to fact with the intention to deceive. When I have the intention to deceive you, even if what I say may be true, the way I say it could be deceptive. You see, lying involves sometimes exaggeration, flattery. We make promises and vows and don't keep them. It means hypocrisy, pretending to be something that we are not. The first discipline in the early church, Acts 5:1-11, came about because of lying. Ananias and Sapphira, husband and wife, lied to Peter, lied to God, lied to the Holy Spirit about their business transaction. God didn't want their money; God wanted their hearts. And because of their hypocrisy, God took their lives. 

The verb "putting" looks like a present participle in the English, but actually it's the aorist in the Greek. Once and for all, you've put away lying. Putting away lying—now, that looks like a present participle. The Greek text says, "putting away the lie." What is "the lie"? It's rather interesting that Jesus said in John 8:44, "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it." Not the father of them, the father of it—the lie. Now, this takes us to the book of Romans, and in Romans 1:25, we read this: "who exchanged the truth of God for the lie," not a lie, not lies, but the lie, "and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." What is the lie that is the foundation for every lie that we tell? "I am God." This is what the devil told our first parents: "You shall be as God." Satan deceived the mind of Eve, 2 Corinthians 11:3, deceived her mind and told her, "Oh, you can be like God." Now we've got to put that away. God is a God of truth, and you and I must follow in our Father's example. 

The negative: put away the lie once and for all. The positive: speak the truth. God doesn't just tell us what not to do; He tells us what we should do. Ephesians 6:14, He compares truth to a girdle, the girdle of truth. Your loins are wearing the girdle of truth. Every movement is a true movement. Your life is controlled by truth. Now our God is a God of truth, Deuteronomy 32:4, "A God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He." John 17:17, "Thy word is truth." Now, truth is what holds society together. If contracts are broken, if we can't trust people's word, if the laws are going to be twisted, society falls apart. That's why society is falling apart, because vows are not being kept, and promises are being broken, and you can't trust advertising in some cases, and you can't trust contracts. Truth cements society, and therefore, speak the truth. 

Now he gives the argument after giving the admonition. Why should we put away the lie and why should we tell the truth? Well, because number one, we are neighbors. Let each one speak truth with his neighbor. Now, Paul is obviously here thinking of Exodus 20:16, the ninth commandment: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." And of course, the question is raised, "Who is my neighbor?" All of us are neighbors in this global village that we call the Earth, and the Earth keeps getting smaller and smaller. We're neighbors. That's a good commandment: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." "You shall not covet." "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." We're neighbors. Even unsaved people are neighbors, and we should obey God and tell the truth. 

But more than that, we are members of one another. Now he talks about what it means to be a part of the church. In Ephesians 1:22-23, he compares the church of our Lord Jesus Christ to a body, which is His body. And here we are, members of one another. You know what that means? If I lie to you, I not only hurt you, I hurt myself. I belong to you. We're members of the same body, and I hurt the whole body. Paul has already told us that the only way to build the church is by "speaking the truth in love," Ephesians 4:15. The reason our churches will not grow and be spiritually nourished is often because there's no truth and no love. Lying goes on. And I tell you, once lies start to spread through a church, there's going to be all kinds of damage. This is why he says, "Now you put off that old man, which grows corrupt, and put on the new man, which is being created unto true holiness." Make your choice: corruption, the old corruption, or the new creation? Make your choice. There it is. We are members of one another. Now, would we deliberately go up and shoot poison into somebody's bloodstream? No, of course not. Then why would we poison them, poison ourselves, and poison the body with lies? Whenever we speak the truth in love, God goes to work, and there is building. Whenever we speak lies, the devil goes to work, and there is tearing down. We become more like the Lord Jesus Christ when you and I speak the truth in love. Put away lying. Live the truth.

Ephesians 4:26-27: "Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil." Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure that is aroused by a real or a supposed wrong. Notice that: anger is a strong feeling of displeasure that is aroused by a real or a supposed wrong. Now, anger of course is not evil in itself. Anger is a part of our defense mechanism. God gave it to us. Even God gets angry. Now God does not have temper tantrums, but God is angry at sin. God is angry at wrong. The Lord Jesus Christ got angry. He was angered when He saw the hardness of their hearts. He was angry when He cleansed the temple. Now, this was not a temper tantrum; this was an exhibition of the anger of God. 

Now if you and I are going to handle anger creatively as Christians, we must heed the admonitions that Paul gives to us here. We have three admonitions we'd better heed: Control our anger ("Be angry, but do not sin"); Confess that anger ("Do not let the sun go down on your wrath"); Conquer that anger ("nor give place to the devil").

Admonition number one: control that anger. "Be angry, but do not sin." Now, this is a quotation from Psalm 4. And I invite you to turn to Psalm 4 as we look at it. It's a Psalm of David. David was going through a difficult time when he wrote Psalm 4, possibly the rebellion of Absalom took place when he wrote this Psalm. In Psalm 4:1 he speaks to God: "Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me when I was in distress; have mercy on me, and hear my prayer." Then in Psalm 4:2-3 he speaks to his enemies: "How long, O you sons of men, will you turn my glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood? But know that the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly; the Lord will hear when I call to Him." Now in Psalm 4:4-5 he speaks to himself. He's talking to himself. "Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord." David speaks to himself, and he's angry because of what Absalom has done. He's angry because people have broken the law, they've rebelled against the God-anointed king, God's servant. He's angry, and he's on the verge of sinning. He says, "Now be angry," or you can translate that, "Tremble," or "Be disturbed, but do not sin." You see, when we see something wrong or we experience something wrong, oh we get agitated down inside. And the devil knows this, doesn't he? Now we have to control our anger. 

What makes anger sinful? Well, we can be angry at the wrong people. I think all of us as parents and grandparents have repented scolding or disciplining a child for something the child didn't even do. We can be angry at the wrong people. We can be angry to the wrong degree. Some people kill a mosquito with a cannon. They drop an atomic bomb on a fly. No need to blow up over every little thing. That usually is an evidence there's something wrong down inside. We can be angry at the wrong time. There is a time to display anger. We can be angry at the wrong time, or with the wrong motive. Now so often we baptize our anger and we say, "Oh, it's the wrath of God, righteous indignation," when it's just pure temper. We like to sanctify our sins. Our motive is wrong. Our feelings have been hurt, or we're envious of somebody and we want to lash out at that person. Our pride has been hurt, or we might be angry for the wrong purpose, just to promote ourselves, to tear somebody else down. We might be angry in the wrong way. Anger can be sinful when you start mixing it up with pride and envy and greed. What are we supposed to do? Put off the old, put on the new. These admonitions are an outgrowth of what Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:17-24. He said, "Now you've put off the old man," Ephesians 4:22. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Start thinking like a Christian. And put on that new man who is created according to God in righteousness and true holiness, or the holiness of truth. We have put away the old graveclothes. Now we should let the Holy Spirit of God help us. Ephesians 4:30: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God." The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace; that should take care of selfish, sinful anger. Admonition number one: control it.

Admonition number two: confess it. Get it settled. "Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath." Now, Paul uses in this paragraph two different words for anger. When he talks about anger, it's the word that means outbursts of anger. Down in Ephesians 4:31, when he uses the word wrath—"let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away"—there he's talking about that settled irritability, that settled poison feeling down inside. Sometimes we blow up, and sometimes we just simmer. And he tells us that both are wrong. Confess it. "Let not the sun go down on your wrath." What is he saying? He's saying here, don't hold on to it. Don't let anger become a settled grudge down inside.

Now Jesus talked about this, Matthew 5:21. "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!'"—which is a word that means you're empty-headed, it's a word of contempt—"shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire." Boy, the judgment is getting worse, isn't it? "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you"—that's why you're angry at him—"leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."

Do you mean that being reconciled to my brother is more important than worship? Yes. I wonder how many people ever left a worship service right in the middle of the sermon or the offering and went home and made a long-distance call to a brother and apologized and said, "Let's be friends again." Why, if that happened, I wonder what would happen in the church. "Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. The longer you wait, the worse it gets. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny." You're holding a grudge against your brother—be careful. Anger in the heart is murder in the heart. That anger is revealed in words. This sin will not be dealt with at the altar; you've got to go talk to your brother. I have to go talk to my brother. I recall preparing a message one day, and the longer I prepared the message, the more convicted I became, and I had to make a long-distance phone call and apologize to a person for something I had done. Then my heart was free and I was able to minister. Settle it now. Don't wait too long. You'll end up in the worst prison of all: the prison of an unforgiving spirit. Don't nurse grudges. Confess it, control it. 

Thirdly, conquer it. Here's the great danger of anger. "Be angry and do not sin, and do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil." The word "place" means a beachhead, an opportunity to the devil. The word "devil" means the slanderer, diabolos, the slanderer. Anger, slander, lying—they all go together, don't they? Neither give place to the devil. Anger gives the devil a beachhead because he is a liar and a murderer, and these things go together. The interesting illustration, of course, is Cain. Genesis 4:5, "but God did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell." And so the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen?" Now 1 John tells us why: he was angry because his own deeds were not righteous, but his brother's deeds were righteous. He was angry at God and angry at his brother. So what does Cain do? Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. First anger, then murder, then lying—"Am I my brother's keeper?" 1 John 3:15 warns us about anger: "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death." These are solemn words. You see, unconquered anger makes you a destroyer, not a builder. Love builds, but anger destroys. Godless anger, sinful anger. Anger makes you a victim, not a victor. A prisoner, not a free person. Instead of giving place to the devil, let's give place to God.

Suppose somebody has wronged you. Don't say, "Well, I'm not going to get mad, I'm going to get even." That sounds so interesting, but oh it's so destructive. "I'm going to get even." "Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath"—that means the wrath of God—"for it is written," and here he quotes from Deuteronomy 32:35, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." You see, it takes not only love to conquer anger, it takes faith. Turn it over to the Lord. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Don't give place to the devil; rather do what Romans 12:19 says and give place to the wrath of God. God can take care of you. God knows all about it. God can do a better job of defending you than you can do. Therefore, anger can be a good part of a Christian character, but we must control it, we must confess it. "Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil."